Leejnd
Contributor
Im posting about an incident that happened to me a few days ago in the Galapagos Islands. Let me just say that Im extremely grateful to be posting this myself, and in the near misses forum rather than the accidents forum! And Im not posting this in the mishap analysis forum because I think all the lessons to be learned are pretty self-evident. Im really doing it more as a reminder to other divers not to make the same mistakes I did
and yes, I realize where my mistakes are. I also want to call out the dive op, Sub-Aqua in Puerto Ayorta, on Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos, Ecuador. Based on my experience with them, they are ripe to lose someone, and soon, if they dont change their practices and upgrade their gear.
My husband, Charlie, and I were on a three week small-group adventure tour to Machu Picchu and Galapagos. This tour does not include any diving, but the final two days of the tour were at a hotel in the Galapagos (after spending several days on a small ship around the islands), so we chose to forgo the land-based group activities on those two days and go diving on our own.
We booked these dives with a woman who is active on SB in the South America forum, who leads land and dive tours in the Galapagos, and has numerous contacts there. She recommended this particular dive operator, and acted as booking agent. We paid her, she booked with the dive op. I will not identify her here, but she is welcome to jump in and identify herself if she wants. I will say that I am absolutely thrilled with her response to this I emailed her the story yesterday from my Blackberry while in between flights home, and before I even landed, shed emailed me her horror at my experience, and paypalled me the total amount of refund that I requested, from her own pocket, not even knowing yet if the dive op will refund it to her (and they damn well better). She has promised to immediately address this with the dive op, and not send any more divers their way until she feels the situation has been adequately resolved. So kudos to her!
Anyway, to get on with the story:
On the first day (Fri) we arrived at the dive shop before the specified time of 1 pm, and were fitted for equipment. We were concerned to see how old and worn out the equipment was, but since we'd already paid for the dives we went ahead.
Now, some are going to say that these were mistakes #1 & 2: never pay for dives before youve gone on them, and never go with a dive op with old-looking equipment. That is unrealistic. I have been diving all over the world, and many LDSs, particularly in third-world countries, are just not up to the gear standards those of us in the US are accustomed to. And FEW dive ops will take you diving unless you pay first. The vast majority also have rigid no-refund policies if you book the dives, and choose not to do them for any reason, you lose your money, end of story. I believe this is a dangerous policy, and can too often lead divers to choose to go ahead with dives in spite of misgivings because they just dont want to throw away hundreds of dollars due to a bad gut feeling.
As for bringing our own gear, that was not an option. Our tour group had very limited luggage allowances, and had we brought our gear, we basically wouldnt have been able to bring CLOTHES!
So moving along: it took them hours to get organized, and we didn't actually get underway on the boat until 3:30pm. Note that at the equator, sunset comes at 6pm all year round, so that didnt leave us a lot of time to get two dives and a decent surface interval in before dark. The boat itself was very unpleasant to be on...it was heavily burning oil and filling with noxious fumes, making us all nauseous even in the calm bay. Then they couldn't find the promised dive site, which was supposed to be an underwater pinnacle in Academy Bay called El Bajo...the DM told us the boats sonar was broken so they tried to find it by the archaic method of dropping a line with a dive weight on the end. Finally, unable to find it after several tries, they took us to a rocky site at the mouth of the bay where there was very little life. Already this outfit was beginning to look like the Three Stooges of Ecuador.
We had two DMs with us: one named Luis, whose English was rudimentary at best, and one named Walter who spoke no English. Divers included the two of us, a couple from Florida, and three guys from Spain.
Once we got to the dive site, they had us do buoyancy checks since we were all using different gear than were used to, and kilos instead of pounds. But strangely, they insisted we do them without our gear on just weight belts over our wetsuits, which we thought was very bizarre. But then once gearing up they didn't even pay attention to the amount of weight we were supposed to have they just haphazardly started throwing weight belts at us, and even gave my husband the wrong one which we didnt catch because they all looked the same.
Mistake #1: dont trust the DMs to keep track of your weights/gear. Make sure you know which is yours, and even mark them in some way so they dont get mixed up with others.
Once it was time to go in, they must have finally realized how late it was as they suddenly started rushing like madmen, making us gear up so quickly and jump in that we didn't have a chance to do a proper buddy check with this unfamiliar gear. Then, Charlie couldn't descend because theyd given him the wrong weight belt without enough weight. And for some incomprehensible reason they put the non-English speaking DM with the 4 Americans, and Luis with the 3 Spanish guys! So Charlie couldn't get our DM to understand that he needed more weight. He finally was able to signal the skipper to hand him another weight block from the boat, which he slipped into his BCD pocket.
Mistake #2: dont be sheep, even when on a DM-led dive in a foreign country. MAKE the damn DM wait until YOU are comfortable with your gear, and feel ready to go in.
The dive was utterly boring. We saw nothing more than the same surgeonfish we'd been seeing snorkeling all week. Worse, my BCD was malfunctioning...it wouldn't hold air! Because it was such a shallow dive (40 ft max) I didn't discover this until the end of the dive at the surface, when it wouldn't inflate to keep me afloat. Fortunately I'm a strong swimmer and it was very calm in the Bay so it wasn't a problem, I was able to fin myself to the boat and get out. But it ticked me off.
Everyone was unhappy with the dive. Initially we all decided not to even bother doing a second dive. My husband was livid over the fact that they'd given malfunctioning gear to his wife, and we were all disappointed in the dive site. We were also dismayed at how they sloppily tossed around the gear, walked all over it, didn't pay attention to which belonged to whom.
After a little while, the couple from Florida decided to do the second dive because it was their last day in the Galapagos. I decided to go ahead with them and DM Walter, using my husband's working BCD (he was not interested in doing another dive with these clowns). It was a shallow and easy dive, so as long as my gear worked, I knew Id be fine. This dive was slightly better only because we saw one big ol Galapagos shark in the distance, but it was getting dark so the vis was bad. And when we surfaced, no one was even watching for us! Charlie saw us pop up some distance away, but it took him many minutes to get the attention of the skipper, and the chase dinghy wasn't even available...the other DM had taken the Spanish guys out to photograph sea lions on the rocks! The skipper couldnt be bothered to move the boat closer to us. It was a very long surface swim back to the boat, and by the time we got there it was dark, and we had no lights.
The next day we were scheduled to go to an advanced site out in the open ocean, known as Gordon Rocks. After such a bad experience, Charlie chose not to go at all. He has only about 50 dives, to my 150, and he was just not comfortable with them. I made the difficult decision to go ahead with it, which I realize now was a mistake...one that could have been disastrous. But I kept thinking that I doubt I will ever get to the Galapagos again, and these were very expensive dives ($170 for two tanks) so I chose to take the risk.
Mistake #3: Trust your gut. If the dive op seems unsafe, DONT GO WITH THEM! Whats more important, your money or your life?
The next morning at the shop, I was very insistent that I NOT be given the same BCD as the day before. This time we had different DMs, all of whom spoke at least some English, and they promised me it was different equipment. I couldn't tell because frankly all the gear was pretty crappy, but they kept assuring me it was different. Okay then.
Fortunately it was a different boat which didn't blow oil. I will also say that these DMs were a bit more professional than the others, and they gave a good briefing of what to expect at the site, so I felt better about my choice to go ahead.
Gordon Rocks is one of the most advanced, challenging dive sites I have ever dived. Its an old volcanic caldera, with three big rocks in a circle, and three inlets into the crater, all of which let in competing ocean currents. No matter how calm it might be in the open ocean, inside the caldera it is a veritable washing machine, with churning, slapping waves at the surface. When entering, you cannot linger at the surface you have to immediately descend. Things calm down once below 10 ft, but you still have to be cautious of down-drafts due to inbound currents hitting the rocks. Its all doable, however, as long as you can quickly descend beneath the churn, and then pay close attention to your depth and buoyancy. And at the end of the dive, its imperative that you finish with enough air to be able to leave your reg in, because you can NOT remove your reg and mask until you are in the boat, due to the violently turbulent surface.
We had 7 divers and three DMs. I was buddying with one of the DMs, who was also responsible for a couple of newbies from the UK (with less than 7 dives before this trip), so we had a team of 4. The other two DMs were with the other four divers, but we all stayed pretty close together. I checked my BCD on the boat, and it seemed to be working it inflated and vented.
Entry went as planned, and we dropped to 95 ft along the rim. My BCD was functioning, as I was able to pump air in to achieve neutral buoyancy at 95 ft and then vent some out when we rose to about 60 ft. We saw some cool fish, and one hammerhead in the distance, and then when I was at about 900 psi we ascended to do a blue-water safety stop in the center of the caldera, which went fine.
Safety stop done, I surfaced in the wild wash with 700 psi, and went to inflate my BCD, only to hear a little *pop* and discover that it wouldn't hold air - it was obviously the same faulty one! Now understand that in the bay this was no big deal, but in the washing machine of Gordon Rocks this could have been deadly. I was already slightly overweighted due to the bizarre and unscientific buoyancy check of the day before, and with 4-ft churning waves splashing me hard in the face I couldn't remove my reg to get breaths. It wasn't long before my exertion to keep from sinking, and ongoing efforts to inflate my BCD, left my tank at 0...my first (and I hope only) OOA experience.
I considered ditching my weights, but I was reluctant to do so knowing that other divers were below us still doing their safety stops (wed been the first group out, and so were the first group to surface). Fortunately I was able to get the attention of my DM buddy, who swam over. Due to his limited English I don't think he really understood my dilemma, but at least I was able to make myself understood that I was OOA yeah, that hand signal is pretty unmistakable and he gave me his octopus while the other DM swam over and held me aloft. I suspect they thought I was just panicky in the waves, but I assure you I was not...in fact I was well aware of my dangerous situation, and was thinking more clearly than ever. I firmly believe that had I panicked, either I would not be here to tell you this tale, or one of the other divers might not be here due to having 20 lbs of lead blocks dropped on his head.
Once aboard, I was finally able to explain the situation to the DMs. Turns out this WAS in fact the very same faulty BCD that I'd had before, which had a leak in the inflator tube that they said had been "repaired". Clearly not well enough! Naturally I was mad as hell that they gave me malfunctioning equipment at such an advanced dive site, especially when I was so adamant earlier that I get different gear. What the hell were they thinking?
I did go ahead and do the second dive, but only after making sure that they give me the extra BCD that was onboard (which would have been my husbands, had he come, and I knew his worked). Please, dont anybody give me any lip over doing the second dive, okay? I am quite sure I will never get to the Galapagos Islands again in my life, and at that point I knew what to expect, and knew that BCD worked. I'm glad I did the second dive, as we saw a bunch more hammerheads, some sea turtles, a pod of huge eagle rays and other cool stuff -- but knowing how bad this dive op is overall, I do realize it was probably a foolhardy thing to do. I'm not proud of this, but my desire to get in one decent dive at one of the greatest dive sites on the planet won out over my misgivings with the dive op.
In the end, it was by far the worst dive op I have ever experienced. I have been diving in many places, including third world countries - Bali, Belize, Costa Rica, Mexico, French Polynesia, and more. Nothing has come close to the level of ineptitude and unprofessionalism we experienced with Sub-Aqua.
I can assure you I have related these events with rigorous honesty, so while I will brook no challenges to the integrity of my story, I am certainly open to comments, suggestions and insights. And if the owners of Sub-Aqua hear of this thread, I encourage them to come in and tell us what they are doing to improve their operation, and prevent this from happening to someone else. The Galapagos are a very remote site, with limited options for rescue/treatment should there be an accident - as we sadly know from a recent fatality there. This is NOT the place for a dive op to be sloppy with safety, or rent out malfunctioning gear.
My husband, Charlie, and I were on a three week small-group adventure tour to Machu Picchu and Galapagos. This tour does not include any diving, but the final two days of the tour were at a hotel in the Galapagos (after spending several days on a small ship around the islands), so we chose to forgo the land-based group activities on those two days and go diving on our own.
We booked these dives with a woman who is active on SB in the South America forum, who leads land and dive tours in the Galapagos, and has numerous contacts there. She recommended this particular dive operator, and acted as booking agent. We paid her, she booked with the dive op. I will not identify her here, but she is welcome to jump in and identify herself if she wants. I will say that I am absolutely thrilled with her response to this I emailed her the story yesterday from my Blackberry while in between flights home, and before I even landed, shed emailed me her horror at my experience, and paypalled me the total amount of refund that I requested, from her own pocket, not even knowing yet if the dive op will refund it to her (and they damn well better). She has promised to immediately address this with the dive op, and not send any more divers their way until she feels the situation has been adequately resolved. So kudos to her!
Anyway, to get on with the story:
On the first day (Fri) we arrived at the dive shop before the specified time of 1 pm, and were fitted for equipment. We were concerned to see how old and worn out the equipment was, but since we'd already paid for the dives we went ahead.
Now, some are going to say that these were mistakes #1 & 2: never pay for dives before youve gone on them, and never go with a dive op with old-looking equipment. That is unrealistic. I have been diving all over the world, and many LDSs, particularly in third-world countries, are just not up to the gear standards those of us in the US are accustomed to. And FEW dive ops will take you diving unless you pay first. The vast majority also have rigid no-refund policies if you book the dives, and choose not to do them for any reason, you lose your money, end of story. I believe this is a dangerous policy, and can too often lead divers to choose to go ahead with dives in spite of misgivings because they just dont want to throw away hundreds of dollars due to a bad gut feeling.
As for bringing our own gear, that was not an option. Our tour group had very limited luggage allowances, and had we brought our gear, we basically wouldnt have been able to bring CLOTHES!
So moving along: it took them hours to get organized, and we didn't actually get underway on the boat until 3:30pm. Note that at the equator, sunset comes at 6pm all year round, so that didnt leave us a lot of time to get two dives and a decent surface interval in before dark. The boat itself was very unpleasant to be on...it was heavily burning oil and filling with noxious fumes, making us all nauseous even in the calm bay. Then they couldn't find the promised dive site, which was supposed to be an underwater pinnacle in Academy Bay called El Bajo...the DM told us the boats sonar was broken so they tried to find it by the archaic method of dropping a line with a dive weight on the end. Finally, unable to find it after several tries, they took us to a rocky site at the mouth of the bay where there was very little life. Already this outfit was beginning to look like the Three Stooges of Ecuador.
We had two DMs with us: one named Luis, whose English was rudimentary at best, and one named Walter who spoke no English. Divers included the two of us, a couple from Florida, and three guys from Spain.
Once we got to the dive site, they had us do buoyancy checks since we were all using different gear than were used to, and kilos instead of pounds. But strangely, they insisted we do them without our gear on just weight belts over our wetsuits, which we thought was very bizarre. But then once gearing up they didn't even pay attention to the amount of weight we were supposed to have they just haphazardly started throwing weight belts at us, and even gave my husband the wrong one which we didnt catch because they all looked the same.
Mistake #1: dont trust the DMs to keep track of your weights/gear. Make sure you know which is yours, and even mark them in some way so they dont get mixed up with others.
Once it was time to go in, they must have finally realized how late it was as they suddenly started rushing like madmen, making us gear up so quickly and jump in that we didn't have a chance to do a proper buddy check with this unfamiliar gear. Then, Charlie couldn't descend because theyd given him the wrong weight belt without enough weight. And for some incomprehensible reason they put the non-English speaking DM with the 4 Americans, and Luis with the 3 Spanish guys! So Charlie couldn't get our DM to understand that he needed more weight. He finally was able to signal the skipper to hand him another weight block from the boat, which he slipped into his BCD pocket.
Mistake #2: dont be sheep, even when on a DM-led dive in a foreign country. MAKE the damn DM wait until YOU are comfortable with your gear, and feel ready to go in.
The dive was utterly boring. We saw nothing more than the same surgeonfish we'd been seeing snorkeling all week. Worse, my BCD was malfunctioning...it wouldn't hold air! Because it was such a shallow dive (40 ft max) I didn't discover this until the end of the dive at the surface, when it wouldn't inflate to keep me afloat. Fortunately I'm a strong swimmer and it was very calm in the Bay so it wasn't a problem, I was able to fin myself to the boat and get out. But it ticked me off.
Everyone was unhappy with the dive. Initially we all decided not to even bother doing a second dive. My husband was livid over the fact that they'd given malfunctioning gear to his wife, and we were all disappointed in the dive site. We were also dismayed at how they sloppily tossed around the gear, walked all over it, didn't pay attention to which belonged to whom.
After a little while, the couple from Florida decided to do the second dive because it was their last day in the Galapagos. I decided to go ahead with them and DM Walter, using my husband's working BCD (he was not interested in doing another dive with these clowns). It was a shallow and easy dive, so as long as my gear worked, I knew Id be fine. This dive was slightly better only because we saw one big ol Galapagos shark in the distance, but it was getting dark so the vis was bad. And when we surfaced, no one was even watching for us! Charlie saw us pop up some distance away, but it took him many minutes to get the attention of the skipper, and the chase dinghy wasn't even available...the other DM had taken the Spanish guys out to photograph sea lions on the rocks! The skipper couldnt be bothered to move the boat closer to us. It was a very long surface swim back to the boat, and by the time we got there it was dark, and we had no lights.
The next day we were scheduled to go to an advanced site out in the open ocean, known as Gordon Rocks. After such a bad experience, Charlie chose not to go at all. He has only about 50 dives, to my 150, and he was just not comfortable with them. I made the difficult decision to go ahead with it, which I realize now was a mistake...one that could have been disastrous. But I kept thinking that I doubt I will ever get to the Galapagos again, and these were very expensive dives ($170 for two tanks) so I chose to take the risk.
Mistake #3: Trust your gut. If the dive op seems unsafe, DONT GO WITH THEM! Whats more important, your money or your life?
The next morning at the shop, I was very insistent that I NOT be given the same BCD as the day before. This time we had different DMs, all of whom spoke at least some English, and they promised me it was different equipment. I couldn't tell because frankly all the gear was pretty crappy, but they kept assuring me it was different. Okay then.
Fortunately it was a different boat which didn't blow oil. I will also say that these DMs were a bit more professional than the others, and they gave a good briefing of what to expect at the site, so I felt better about my choice to go ahead.
Gordon Rocks is one of the most advanced, challenging dive sites I have ever dived. Its an old volcanic caldera, with three big rocks in a circle, and three inlets into the crater, all of which let in competing ocean currents. No matter how calm it might be in the open ocean, inside the caldera it is a veritable washing machine, with churning, slapping waves at the surface. When entering, you cannot linger at the surface you have to immediately descend. Things calm down once below 10 ft, but you still have to be cautious of down-drafts due to inbound currents hitting the rocks. Its all doable, however, as long as you can quickly descend beneath the churn, and then pay close attention to your depth and buoyancy. And at the end of the dive, its imperative that you finish with enough air to be able to leave your reg in, because you can NOT remove your reg and mask until you are in the boat, due to the violently turbulent surface.
We had 7 divers and three DMs. I was buddying with one of the DMs, who was also responsible for a couple of newbies from the UK (with less than 7 dives before this trip), so we had a team of 4. The other two DMs were with the other four divers, but we all stayed pretty close together. I checked my BCD on the boat, and it seemed to be working it inflated and vented.
Entry went as planned, and we dropped to 95 ft along the rim. My BCD was functioning, as I was able to pump air in to achieve neutral buoyancy at 95 ft and then vent some out when we rose to about 60 ft. We saw some cool fish, and one hammerhead in the distance, and then when I was at about 900 psi we ascended to do a blue-water safety stop in the center of the caldera, which went fine.
Safety stop done, I surfaced in the wild wash with 700 psi, and went to inflate my BCD, only to hear a little *pop* and discover that it wouldn't hold air - it was obviously the same faulty one! Now understand that in the bay this was no big deal, but in the washing machine of Gordon Rocks this could have been deadly. I was already slightly overweighted due to the bizarre and unscientific buoyancy check of the day before, and with 4-ft churning waves splashing me hard in the face I couldn't remove my reg to get breaths. It wasn't long before my exertion to keep from sinking, and ongoing efforts to inflate my BCD, left my tank at 0...my first (and I hope only) OOA experience.
I considered ditching my weights, but I was reluctant to do so knowing that other divers were below us still doing their safety stops (wed been the first group out, and so were the first group to surface). Fortunately I was able to get the attention of my DM buddy, who swam over. Due to his limited English I don't think he really understood my dilemma, but at least I was able to make myself understood that I was OOA yeah, that hand signal is pretty unmistakable and he gave me his octopus while the other DM swam over and held me aloft. I suspect they thought I was just panicky in the waves, but I assure you I was not...in fact I was well aware of my dangerous situation, and was thinking more clearly than ever. I firmly believe that had I panicked, either I would not be here to tell you this tale, or one of the other divers might not be here due to having 20 lbs of lead blocks dropped on his head.
Once aboard, I was finally able to explain the situation to the DMs. Turns out this WAS in fact the very same faulty BCD that I'd had before, which had a leak in the inflator tube that they said had been "repaired". Clearly not well enough! Naturally I was mad as hell that they gave me malfunctioning equipment at such an advanced dive site, especially when I was so adamant earlier that I get different gear. What the hell were they thinking?
I did go ahead and do the second dive, but only after making sure that they give me the extra BCD that was onboard (which would have been my husbands, had he come, and I knew his worked). Please, dont anybody give me any lip over doing the second dive, okay? I am quite sure I will never get to the Galapagos Islands again in my life, and at that point I knew what to expect, and knew that BCD worked. I'm glad I did the second dive, as we saw a bunch more hammerheads, some sea turtles, a pod of huge eagle rays and other cool stuff -- but knowing how bad this dive op is overall, I do realize it was probably a foolhardy thing to do. I'm not proud of this, but my desire to get in one decent dive at one of the greatest dive sites on the planet won out over my misgivings with the dive op.
In the end, it was by far the worst dive op I have ever experienced. I have been diving in many places, including third world countries - Bali, Belize, Costa Rica, Mexico, French Polynesia, and more. Nothing has come close to the level of ineptitude and unprofessionalism we experienced with Sub-Aqua.
I can assure you I have related these events with rigorous honesty, so while I will brook no challenges to the integrity of my story, I am certainly open to comments, suggestions and insights. And if the owners of Sub-Aqua hear of this thread, I encourage them to come in and tell us what they are doing to improve their operation, and prevent this from happening to someone else. The Galapagos are a very remote site, with limited options for rescue/treatment should there be an accident - as we sadly know from a recent fatality there. This is NOT the place for a dive op to be sloppy with safety, or rent out malfunctioning gear.
